Background: Dietary intakes are critical during pregnancy, because inadequate amounts of key nutrients may compromise fetal development or maternal health. In addition to that maternal diet could be one of the methods to select the gender of the baby. The aim of the study is to correlate the level of the minerals in the mother’s blood with the gender and wellbeing of the baby after delivery.Patients and Methods: Fifty women were involved in this study with a mean age (23.92 ± 4.75), collected from the labor room during labor in the period between December 2013 and May 2014, in Baghdad teaching hospital. After taking a full history from the women, 10 ml of blood was withdrawn from them, 2ml in EDTA tubes for lead estimation and 8 ml in plain tubes, centrifuged and the serum was used for magnesium, copper, calcium and zinc estimation. The estimation was done by spectrophotometer method.Results: Birth weight of the delivered babies was correlated negatively but not significantly to the age of the delivered women. The level of the minerals in the maternal blood was not different between those who delivered male or female babies except for the zinc level which was higher in those women who give birth to male babies. The correlation between the birth weight of the babies and the level of maternal minerals shows a not significant positive correlation between them except for zinc which was significant and the lead level was correlated negatively but not significantly with birth weight.Conclusions: Age seems to have no significant effect on birth weight. There is no significant effect of the minerals level on the selection of the baby’s gender except for zinc which is higher in women with male babies, in addition to its significant effect on the birth weight being higher in women with higher birth weight babies.
Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly fuel and a good substitution for the fossil fuel. However, the purity of this fuel is a major concern that challenges researchers. In this study, a calcium oxide based catalyst has been prepared from local waste eggshells by the calcination method and tested in production biodiesel. The eggshells were powdered and calcined at different temperatures (700, 750, 800, 850 and 900 °C) and periods of time (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hr.). The effect of calcination temperature and calcination time on the structure and activity of the solid catalyst were examined by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Brunaure-Emmett-Teller (BET). The optimum catalyst performance was obtained at 900 °C
... Show MoreNitrogen dioxide NO2 is one of the most dangerous contaminant in the air, its toxic gas that cause disturbing respiratory effects, most of it emitted from industrial sources especially from the stack of power plants and oil refineries. In this study Gaussian equations modelled by Matlab program to state the effect of pollutant NO2 gas on area around Durra refinery, this program also evaluate some elements such as wind and stability and its effect on stacks height. Data used in this study is the amount of fuel oil and fuel gas burn inside refinery at a year 2017. Hourly April month data chosen as a case study because it’s unsteady month. After evaluate emission rate of the all fuel and calculate exit velocity from
... Show MoreIn this work, the adsorption of reactive yellow dye (Remazol yellow FG dye) by granular activated carbon (GAC) was investigated using batch and continuous process. The batch process involved determination the equilibrium isotherm curve either favorable or unfavorable by estimation relation between adsorption capacity and concentration of dye at different dosage of activated carbon. The results were fitted with equilibrium isotherm models Langmuir and Freundlich models with R2value (>0.97). Batch Kinetic study showed good fitting with pseudo second order model with R2 (0.987) at contact time 5 h. which provesthat the adsorption is chemisorptions nature. Continuous study was done by fixed bed column where breakthrough time was increased
... Show MoreTwo Prototypes of Transversely Excited at atmospheric pressure (TEA) Nitrogen laser systems (One Stage Blumlein Circuit and Two Stage Blumlein Circuit) were fabricated and operated. High voltage power supply with variable operating voltage (0-20 kv) and operating current (1-3A) was built and tested successfully. The gas flow rate of 15 L/ min and 10 L/ min for OSBC and TSBC was used. The performance of the fabricated systems was studied extensively reaching to the optimum operating conditions. The obtained laser output energy for the first system has linear relationship with the applied voltage. The maximum output energy was about (1.14 mJ) with (10.40) ns pulse duration and the half-wave divergence angle was about (0.1455 m rad). In the
... Show MoreThe present study focuses on synthesizing solar selective absorber thin films, combining nanostructured, binary transition metal spinel features and a composite oxide of Co and Ni. Single-layered designs of crystalline spinel-type oxides using a facile, easy and relatively cost-effective wet chemical spray pyrolysis method were prepared with a crystalline structure of MxCo3−xO4. The role of the annealing temperature on the solar selective performance of nickel-cobalt oxide thin films (∼725 ± 20 nm thick) was investigated. XRD analysis confirmed the formation of high crystalline quality thin films with a crystallite si
The increasing drinking water demand in many countries leads to an increase in the use of desalination plants, which are considered a great solution for water treatment processes. Reverse osmosis (RO) and electro-dialysis (ED) systems are the most popular membrane processes used to desalinate water at high salinity. Both systems work by separating the ionic contaminates and disposing of them as a brine solution, but ED uses electrical current as a driving force while RO uses osmotic pressure. A direct comparison of reverse osmosis and electro-dialysis systems is needed to highlight process development similarities and variances. This work aims to provide an overview of previous studies on reverse osmosis and electro-dial
... Show MoreDandruff and seborrheic dermatitis (SD) are common skin disorders affecting the scalp and extending to other body sites in the case of SD. They are associated with pruritus and scaling, causing an esthetical disturbance in the population affected. Treatment of such conditions involves using a variety of drugs for long terms, thus optimizing drug formulation is essential to improve therapeutic efficacy and patient compliance. Conventional topical formulations like shampoos and creams have been widely used but their use is associated with disadvantages. To overcome such effects, novel topical nanotechnology-based formulations are currently under investigation. In the following article, we highlight recently published formulatio
... Show MoreIn this work, p-n junctions were fabricated from highly-pure nanostructured NiO and TiO2 thin films deposited on glass substrates by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The structural characterization showed that the prepared multilayer NiO/TiO2 thin film structures were highly pure as no traces for other compounds than NiO and TiO2 were observed. It was found that the absorption of NiO-on-TiO2 structure is higher than that of the TiO2-on-NiO. Also, the NiO/TiO2 heterojunctions exhibit typical electrical characteristics, higher ideality factor and better spectral responsivity when compared to those fabricated from the same materials by the same technique and with larger particle size and lower structural purity.